suffering for the gospel in sunny florida

suhee, gideon & i spent a few days in tampa in order to speak for a youth & college retreat. new light church (tampa) hosted the retreat for a handful of churches from all over florida & one church from new orleans. we had an awesome time. everyone was so warm & welcoming. the retreat center was nice. the food was good. & it even hit 85 degrees. gideon was happy to have so much family time together & he got a lot of attention from all the students too. it's rare for our family of three to share all our meal together like that. apparently the senior pastor's wife (bang un-mi) used to be a pop singer in korea. so a lot of older korean people know who she is. a bunch of the guys from the tampa church train bjj (brazilian jiu-jitsu) together. actually most of the guys in the worship team train together. that's like a personal dream of mine to have a group of close friends that trains together. that last picture is jacob (the bass player). he got cauliflower ear (a hardened mixture of blood & pus) from training bjj. it's kind of like a badge of honor that gives you instant street cred.

hdtv antenna: it really works!!!

so we were about to pay our fios/cable/tv company more money to get 24-hour korean channels. but we took james hong's advice & got an indoor hdtv antenna instead. & i was surprised to find out that it really works. through the antenna we get a few hd channels. & we get a few digital reception channels, including two 24-hour korean channels. our guests have told us that our korean channels come out better than they do on cable. if/when they begin to offer more hd & digital channels through these antennas, i think many cable companies will go out of business. it's outrageous how much we pay for cable tv.

leaders retreat

two weekends ago we had our church leaders retreat. we stayed at a nice & brand-new condo at hunter mountain for a very good price (pre-season prices). it was strange to stay at a ski mountain w/o skiing; we could see the slopes from our front window. it was a great time of fellowship & bonding. i've been convicted that our leaders meetings should not turn into "business" meetings. & i've been reminded that relationship is more important than being task-driven.

people w/hidden talents

last september i went to orlando for a conference w/about 200 korean pastors from our denomination. i met one pastor from new york (i wish i remembered his name) who was really friendly. he told me that he saw me at jfk airport just a few days earlier. i told him how i was dropping off my wife & son. he told me how he was dropping off his in-laws, & he said that he was behind me on the asiana check-in line. though he looked nice & friendly, i kind of got a stalker-vibe from him.

anyways, last sunday our church hosted a music concert. & that pastor led the opening worship. his band was really good. he sang really well. & he led worship really well. i found out that he was a ccm (christian contemporary music) singer in korea & that he won a gospel singing competition in korea.

it's funny how you meet people in life, and yet you know nothing about who they really are. their histories, talents & capabilities. it's like that tv show "heroes", where you meet normal people who turn out to have hidden supernatural abilities.

nikonrumors.com

funny website, yet very informative.
but way tmi (too much information) on all things nikon.

mountaineers

some of our pastoral staff has been going hiking on mondays. seven lakes drive is about 30 minutes from our church, but it feels like a different world up there. being one of the younger guys, i'm always carrying the heavy water & food.

these pictures were taken w/my nikon d50 (cheapest dslr in 2006) & the 18-55 kit lens (one of the cheapest lenses). when the lighting is good, you don't need good equipment to capture good pictures. i love it when you get unique lighting situations when shooting outdoors.